of dreams and wombats

My college roommate sent me a link to a video of an adorable wombat.  I loved seeing it and having it remind me of one of the world's best college professors, and it also made me want to go to Australia, and find a similarly adorable wombat.  Our kids were watching the video with me, and I asked them, "How would you like to go travel around Australia when we're done traveling around the U.S.?"  They said that would be fine, and I promptly forgot the conversation and went to work tidying the camper and getting ready for the day.

I went back to the kids a half hour later, and our youngest three were discussing what they'd do on the really long flight to Australia, what time of year we should go in order to avoid Australia's more dangerous exotic animals, and how they were going to play with whatever wombat they'd see.  It was great!  I hadn't been serious at all.

It's interesting, there have been years when my husband and I have dreamed of doing a bunch of things, but never did any of them.  Lately, though, it seems the crazy ideas and dreams we've had, we're doing.  Now that we've sold the house and are traveling around the country in a 5th wheel, our kids apparently think we're just crazy enough that they'd better start preparing for Australia.  I like, though, that they take our ideas and dreams seriously, and consider them reasonably likely to happen.

How often do we act on our dreams?

Here's an example of a dream we almost didn't do.  It includes trip pictures, if you were waiting for them.  When planning this trip, we'd wanted to see Everglades National Park and the Florida Keys.  However, all those really southern campgrounds were booked, and so we only had one weekend to try to see both of those major destinations.  It was a lot of driving, and I wasn't sure it was worth it, but we decided to go anyway, and this last weekend, we spent Saturday at the Everglades.  It was really, really neat to see, and definitely worth the crazy schedule and lots of driving.  Here are some pictures:

boys with the Everglades welcome sign

view from the trail

with an anhinga as an honorary family member

some trails looked more like a jungle than a swamp

Then on Sunday, we spent the day in the Florida Keys.  Again, it was a fantastic day!  Here are some pictures of John Pennekamp State Park:

warm enough to swim, but the broken coral pieces were pretty sharp!

Happiness.

And some pictures of feeding tarpon:

See the fish in E's hand?

It was so fun to watch these huge tarpon jump out of the water to eat the little fish

And pictures of the local library.  Every library should have a little beach!  This beach includes mangrove trees!

The Keys were different than we expected.  It was harder to find the "treasures" of what to do.  There's a lot of restaurants, bars, hotels and souvenir shops, but the beautiful places can be found, and our family loved exploring by the water!

Now we're back "home" at our camper in Fisheating Creek.  The kids were a little afraid of the gators, so we never did get to take our the S.S. Utter.  You wouldn't think that this would seem safer to them, but we have weird kids.

Y gets helped up to the rope swing

E hangs on tightly

B swings out over the gators - I mean lake

Char shows what a running leap will do with a rope swing

It was fantastic!

For us, it was a week full of acting on dreams we've had.  I'm so thankful to have had the opportunities!

Dreams.  Fun things we've desired.  Everglades.  Florida Keys.

Dreams.  Things God dreams for us.  An extended camping trip, and time to invest in our family.  Time to work and grow, love Him and love each other.

Dreams.  What are your dreams?  What are God's dreams for you and your life?  Are you following them?